Ralph Bodle, Lena Donat, Matthias Duwe

Carbon & Climate Law Review, Volume 10 (2016), Issue 1, Page 5 - 22

The Paris Agreement is a landmark in international climate policy. Both developed and developing countries agree to take action, embedded in their national context and towards agreed transformational long-term objectives. It is also a watershed in differentiating between developing and developed countries. It breaks new ground by supplementing the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, by its core obligations for all parties and by its range of techniques used to express differentiation. The core legal obligations are mainly procedural, as the Paris Agreement does not prescribe specific mitigation actions or emission levels. Instead, in five-year “cycles”, all parties have to prepare and enhance individual climate plans (NDCs) and be accountable for their implementation. Despite limitations in the legal detail, the Paris Agreement’s political narrative goes way beyond its legal text. The approach is an experiment that relies on the national determination of efforts combined with the persuasive impact of the transparency framework and the regular taking stock of progress. The future details to these elements could be crucial for safeguarding ambition.

Lena Donat, Ralph Bodle

Carbon & Climate Law Review, Volume 8 (2014), Issue 1, Page 23 - 34

To provide an effective response to climate change over time, the 2015 Agreement needs to incorporate dynamic elements, including a possibility for adjusting Parties‘ commitments over time. A dynamic adjustment mechanism could help to adjust commitments to the necessary ambition level and to changing circumstances. The challenge is to design such amechanism in a way that would make it objective and stringent while being agreeable for Parties. This article provides a structured approach for developing and evaluating options for a dynamic adjustment mechanism in the 2015 Agreement, drawing from previous experience in the climate regime, other multilateral environmental agreements, and from literature. We explore possible design elements of a mechanism, namely triggers, process, consequences, and derogations, assessing their assets and drawbacks.We argue that an automatic ratchet-upmechanismdoes not appear to be a viable option, and that an adjustmentmechanism based on a procedural approach negotiations currently seems more realistic. However, in order to ensure a certain degree of objectivity in the process, it is essential that commitments in the 2015 agreement are quantifiable and comparable in their mitigation impact across countries and commitment types.